songs from films

Celebrating this week’s release of the trailer for the latest Bond movie, Spectre, I’ve decided to have a James Bond week here on 365 Songs! I’m starting with the famous James Bond Theme itself, written by Monty Norman. Over 70 cover versions of the theme have been recorded, and I guess this means there’s one more!

Today marks 7 years since I left my post in the education department of East Ayrshire Council to run Radio Lingua full time. I had been working evenings and weekends and then gradually went down to working 2.5 days at East Ayrshire and 2.5 days (or 4.5 days!!!) for Radio Lingua, but on 18th July 2008 I handed in my resignation and I haven’t looked back since! Don’t get me wrong: I loved working with colleagues from East Ayrshire and the other authorities involved in the Partners in Excellence project, but being my own boss and gradually building the business and the team has been a wonderful experience and here’s hoping for many more years!

The song I’ve chosen for today is Edith Piaf’s classic Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (literally, “no, I don’t regret anything” or “I have no regrets”). In addition to being one of the most famous French songs ever recorded, this song was also used extensively in the brilliant 2010 film Inception. The theme is based on a slowed-down version of the song, and the running time of the film, 2 hours 28 minutes (of mind-bending confusion!) makes reference to the length of the song when it was originally recorded at 2 minutes 28 seconds!

Today I’m playing the Wiz Kalifa song See You Again which was recorded as a tribute to actor Paul Walker and featured in the 2015 film Furious 7 from the Fast and Furious franchise. The song remained at number one in the Billboard Top 100 for 12 weeks and also reached number one in many other countries.

Today’s song is an 80s classic which featured in the Karate Kid Part II in 1986. It was recorded by Peter Cetera shortly after he left the band Chicago to pursue a solo career. Cetera originally wrote the song for the end titles of Rocky IV but it was not selected for this and instead found its way into the second film in the Karate Kid series.

This song is dedicated to my wife Catriona who celebrates her birthday today who always sings along when she hears this song!

If We Hold On Together is the penultimate song in my James Horner tribute. It’s the theme song from the Don Bluth animated film The Land Before Time which was performed by Diana Ross on the film soundtrack.

Continuing my tribute to James Horner, here’s All Love Can Be from the film A Beautiful Mind. This haunting song was recorded by Charlotte Church for the film and she described it as one of the most haunting and beautiful songs she had ever performed.

To convey the beauty of mathematics, Horner focused on the idea of a kaleidoscope which constantly changes patterns, some patterns moving quickly and other patterns moving more slowly underneath. He conveyed this in the music with the chord progression and the build up of the counter melodies and harmonies. I hope you enjoy this lovely song.

Continuing my tribute to American film music composer James Horner who died this week, today I’m playing the song Remember from the 2004 epic film Troy, made famous by Josh Groban. I hope you enjoy this one.

Don’t worry – Angry Anderson hasn’t made it to my piano tune collection! Suddenly is a beautiful song written especially for the film adaptation of Les Misérables. Apparently when he was reading the book in preparation for making the movie, director Tom Hooper realised that there was no song in the stage show which showed Valjean’s acceptance of fatherhood as he took Cosette under his wing. Claude-Michel Schoenberg had never included such a song because he felt that it was too intimate a moment for the stage and was something that could only be captured on camera. Along with lyricists Alain Boublil and Herbert Kretzmer they came up with the idea of Valjean suddenly realising his purpose in life, and the song was quickly written, ready for the film. There’s more information about this song and clips of the film on this behind-the-scenes video. I hope you enjoy my version.

Today I’m playing Randy Crawford’s One Day I’ll Fly Away from 1980. This song was also performed by Nicole Kidman in the 2001 film Moulin Rouge, and my performance is a bit more in the style of the Moulin Rouge version. I hope you enjoy today’s song.